A slightly related, but true, biology fact is that all mammals (with the exception of sloths and manatees) have seven neck vertebrae. So, humans and giraffes actually have the same number of bones in their necks.

ah yes, Karl Popper’s paradox of yumyucking.

Your gaming PC is going to be terribly inefficient and draw 10x as much power at idle as a workstation PC.

Is this really true? Modern components have fairly robust power saving capabilities. Just because it’s got a 750W power supply doesn’t mean it’s drawing 750W all the time.

Not judging the software at all, but the fact that OnlyOffice is owned/developed by a semi-sketchy Russian corporation would probably preclude it from getting any endorsement from a Western government.

Full article: https://archive.is/U5Uc9

Everybody is so quick to blame the parents in these situations. Maybe there is some truth to that, but people also need to reckon with the fact that kids (and adults) are being constantly inundated by Skinner box apps, and “platforms” full of engagement bait designed to be addictive and attractive as possible. All run by corporations with functionally no regard for the safety of their users.

Yeah, sure, if you’re giving advice to an individual parent, they should probably be keeping a closer eye on what their kids are doing.

But there are systemic problems here that can’t be fixed with individual action. By laying the blame solely at the feet of the parents here, you are in effect putting parents up against dozens of huge corporations, each with armies of expert advertisers, designers, and psychologists working to build these products. It’s hardly a fair fight.

SCOTUS’ decision re: presidential immunity does not (so far) apply to people other than the president himself. It’s also not clear that the president can pardon criminal contempt charges brought by a judge. I expect that we’ll be hearing more from SCOTUS about this in the near future…

FWIW, the judge did say that if the DoJ declines to prosecute, he will appoint an outside attorney to prosecute instead.

For what it’s worth, the judge also said that if the DoJ declines to prosecute, he will appoint another attorney to do so.

If this is a topic folks are interested in, I’d highly recommend Liz Pelly’s new book Mood Machine. She did a lot of research in this area and really lays out how Spotify is destroying discovery and music community in the name of profits. Honestly it’s horrifying, way worse than most people would assume.

An excerpt was published in Harper’s too.

She also did an interview with Anthony Fantano, but I haven’t watched it.

I already am eating from the trashcan, all the time.

I know most of these companies have large logistics operations in other countries, for example Mexico.

Can/will they attempt to dodge the tariffs on China by redirecting shipments through some other country with lower tariffs on the product’s way into the United States? Would it be legal for them to do so? (It seems to me that a tariff happy country might prefer to view that as undesirable behavior–would the Trump administration have any recourse against that sort of thing?)

The enshittification of the English language.

I got it from the library, so I won’t comment how much money it’s worth.

Hard to say I enjoyed it, since the conduct described within is nearly without expection horrifying. I expect that most people on Lemmy would probably be unsurprised by it.

I found it to be a pretty quick read, and I’m glad it’s out there. If you’re interested in the topic I’d say to give it a shot.

I didn’t see the testimony, but I did read her book.

When most people think “targeted advertising”, I think they are thinking about something like: this user is a middle-class woman between 18 and 25 who enjoys bicycles, so we’ll show her ad X.

According to Wynn-Williams, Facebook/Meta is doing things like detecting when a user uploads, then immediately removes a photo–detecting that as a moment of emotional vulnerability (that is, the user was feeling self-conscious about their appearance), then bombarding them with ads in that moment for beauty products.

I think the former is ‘obvious’ to most people, but the latter probably isn’t–probably because Meta and other advertising companies have put a lot of effort in to keep this on the down low–which is why Wynn-Williams is speaking about it publically.

(not accusing you of defending them BTW, just my 2¢ that this goes beyond what most people would consider obvious, imo)

I’d probably replicate a 1x1x1m cube of tungsten, then realize I have no way of removing it from the replicator.

Yeah, but you and I aren’t really representative of all software people. Most of them just want to grill.

Why do they not care?

Because, for many of them, they don’t have any reason to. In other words, privilege. Copyleft licensing is a subversive, anti-establishment thing, and software engineers are predominantly people who benefit from the established power structures. Middle/upper class white men (I’m included in that category, by the way). There’s basically no pressure for them to rock the boat.

And why would they avoid GPL

Because many of them are “libertarian” ideologues who have a myopic focus on negative liberty (as opposed to the positive variety).

Well, my experiences with my coworkers would lead me to pretty much exactly the opposite conclusion: the majority would probably intentionally avoid the GPL, if they even care at all.

I can’t believe professional developers choose MIT because they can’t be arsed to look at the license choices

Have you worked with many professional developers?